The Ferrari team-mates will line up on the third row of the British Grand Prix after being unable to build on their practice P1s and launch an attack on pole position.

A report from The Race claims it could be down to a power unit problem that rears its head in qualifying when the engine is run in its highest mode.

Ferrari have yet to secure pole in F1 2025

Despite starting his British Grand Prix weekend with a season’s first P1 in Friday’s opening practice, Lewis Hamilton fell short of an eighth British Grand Prix pole position.

The Ferrari driver qualified in fifth place, just ahead of his team-mate Charles Leclerc, who had set the pace in the weekend’s final session.

That sparked hope among Ferrari’s Tifosi that maybe the team could secure their first pole position of the season on the 12th time of asking.

But it wasn’t to be.

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Ferrari looked to be in trouble early in qualifying when Hamilton only just snuck into the second segment in 14th place, a tenth away from an early elimination. Leclerc was tenth, four-tenths down on P1.

They bounced back in Q2 to grab the 1-2 ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris, but found themselves off the pace in the pole-position shoot-out.

Hamilton blamed it on “low speed understeer”, saying that was forcing him to “over” drive the car.

Leclerc, though, hinted at a serious issue that sometimes rears its head in qualifying.

“In qualifying we’ve got issues for sure, particularly from Q2 onwards. We’ve been fighting with something inside the car,” he told the media, including PlanetF1.com.

“It’s unrelated. It’s something we didn’t talk about too much.

“It’s something that sometimes in some qualifyings we had the problem. In some others we have absolutely zero problem with it, but today was a bit of a problem.

“The issues are very specific, it’s not a balance issue, it’s not a grip issue. I don’t want to go into the details but it’s something very weird that we’ve got to fight with the car.

“And especially when it’s high-speed, it makes it even more difficult. I hope we can resolve it.”

According to The Race, it could be a power unit issue.

When the teams turn up their engines in qualifying, especially on high-speed circuits such as Silverstone, and put the engine in its highest mode, it creates excessive temperatures.

Having to put in two high-speed runs in the three segments, most notably in Q3, exacerbates the problem.

Added to that, energy management is also affected by the characteristics of the Silverstone, which has very few heavy braking corners.

The end result is 12 races without a pole position for either Ferrari driver.

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